Streaming Platforms have lost the charm for me, here's why

 

Hello Blog,

Disappointed with the streaming services, I am out of it... 

In the winter of 2017, my brother came into the living room and downloaded an application on our smart TV. He said it was going to change the way we watched television. I certainly did not anticipate how much his words would become a reality. I was excited to get my hands on this new thing called Netflix.

As a kid who grew up watching the elusive world of Ekta Kapoor, who produced those annoying 15-minute soap operas (with significant time spent on advertisements), the fact that I could watch a show or movie at any time, anywhere, and an entire season all at once was something I never imagined possible.

My world is entirely different now. Today, I am that greedy audience member who is never satisfied with any media content I consume. As most of you are aware, I am always on the lookout for more and more interesting formats of content.

I recently watched Netflix's Wild Wild Punjab. I have to admit, I absolutely love the raw depiction of tier 2 and tier 3 cities (like in shows such as Mirzapur), which is also the primary reason I watched it. But it was an average movie. The plot didn't particularly stand out for me. I guess 20 percent of the time, I was surfing through Instagram. Plus, it is so outrightly cheap.

In 2019, when Claire Foy hosted Saturday Night Live, she did a skit about Netflix making a lot of content and aimlessly throwing money at meaningless pitches to further undergo production. In the 2010s, content was king. But I believe we have reached a saturation point for that idea. People are consuming content like never before. In a podcast I heard before writing this piece, the host cited an article from an industry insider who said that they are making movies and building plotlines in such a way that audience members are not looking at their small screens at any given point. And to make people stick they are making movies left-right and centre. These movies are mass-y with simple plot lines and big stars. 

I am on the lookout for good-quality content, not movies I will forget about tomorrow. I want the cinema and TV industries to captivate me with their creative imagination, which, unfortunately, they are not even trying to do. The stakes are so high for channels, though. After the writer's strike (where the writers of popular films and TV shows demanded a payback basis for the times audience members watched their work), the cost to produce, pay, and preserve has significantly increased. This results in the rise of subscription models for most streaming websites. So far, Netflix's Indian users have not been victims of this price hike.

Last year, I was so frustrated because I couldn't watch Cate Blanchett's Tàr on Prime Video. I already own one main subscription, but I won't pay for another just to watch one movie. It is not economical for me. I am not sure how this is working out for them, and for some reason, they even decided to have multiple subscription models. It is frustrating to know that I can't watch Shrek because of this.

My guilty pleasures? Some good Chinese cinema and really old 2000s English classics—a collection of movies I can't even watch on any of these streaming platforms. Is no one interested in Gong Li's iconic role in Curse of the Golden Flower, or Hirokazu Koreeda's sensitive depiction of humanity that gave us movies like Like Father, Like Son and Nobody Knows? I believe these classics are constantly being preserved and remastered somewhere. If I choose to purchase a streaming platform's services primarily due to the convenience of getting content, I expect them to provide the type of content that I prefer. I never find the movies I love on streaming platforms.

I got addicted to watching this show called Versailles on Netflix. I used to binge-watch it. I have always been fascinated by the French royalty and nobility, and the norms of their courts disgusted me. One fine morning, this show was removed from Netflix's catalogue. I was enraged. Are they the memory police? Do they really think they can remove shows and movies and we won't notice, that we will forget about them? It is frustrating how viewers can't do anything about this.

Fin. 

Huzzah!